1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to femtocells, and more specifically, to a handover control system and a handover control method for femtocells.
2. Description of Related Art
A femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, which is used to improve network coverage within a small area, for example in home and small offices, thus allowing service providers to extend service coverage indoors.
When user equipment (UE) is moved from a region covered by a first femtocell to another region covered by a second femtocell, the user equipment transmits a handover request to a core network via the first femtocell. The core network determines the location of the second femtocell based on the handover request, and transmits the handover request to the second femtocell. The second femtocell then transmits a response to the core network, and the core network determines whether the user equipment is allowed to be connected to the second femtocell according to the response. If the user equipment is allowed to be connected to the second femtocell, the core network transmits a control signal to the first femtocell, and the first femtocell transmits the control signal to the user equipment. Thus, the user equipment is connected to the second femtocell.
With the known configuration, the core network needs to process a great amount of data, therefore making it easy for the core network to break down. Thus, there is room for improvement in the art.